The seven year glitch

How many times have I now told you that my favourite ex and his favourite ex have got back together and split up?
I’ve lost count. It seems now finally that it is over. I’ve told him that if he takes her back again that’s me and him finished. I think he got the message.
She’s currently enjoying a three week holiday in New Zealand, while he has been preparing a make or break speech for her return. He was due to tell her that she had to make a decision once and for all, and if it was positive they should progress to moving in or similar.
Meanwhile, I was preparing myself to be dancing in a lilac dress with the token gay man in Julia Roberts-style at the end of his wedding — a) I don’t suit lilac and b) I know too many gay men for that to be eventuality.
Also mirroring My Best Friend’s Wedding, he brought up the pact we’d made at college that by the time we were both thirty, if we were single, we were meant to be together. Then came the conversation that we’d known each other for longer than some marriages last — seven years.
Then came the awkward moment where I tried to tell him I loved him, didn’t want to see him hurt and that he was making a big mistake with this girl, without telling him that I was in love with him, and it was because I wasn’t that girl that it was a big mistake.
His decision-making process was certainly a family affair. My mama told him he should quit wasting time and go out with her daughter; his mama said if she loved him so much she wouldn’t hurt him; his brother is fed up with him being so miserable and his dad just wants peace to watch the football.
But before he could put the finishing touches to his all or nothing epic speech, a message came from the land Down Under to say that she didn’t think it was going to work out, and that she wanted to get it sorted before she came home.
Surprisingly, he sounded upbeat when I just spoke to him. Whether that’s just an act to prevent me from uttering those immortal words, beginning in ‘I told’ and ending in ‘you so’, I don’t know.
The last thing I want to happen is for him to sink back down again. But he said himself it’s a big relief that it’s happened now, because he would have always been waiting for the moment when she changed her mind again.
Don’t get me wrong, if he were to find another lovely girl, whose love for him was unconditional I would be behind it 100%. I have resigned myself to the fact that the best- in my role with him, won’t change back to girl- again.
Unless by some unbelievable circumstances he gets to 30 and hasn’t found anyone else. Or he has an epiphany and remembers the day we first met and fell in love in the college laundry room and can’t bear to be without me.
Mama says he just needs time. He’s got four years before the decision is taken out of his hands.
So now the four of us (me, him, his brother and his best friend) are planning a bachelor weekend away — using flights he bought for a getaway with her.
We’re all single, young and attractive human beings who don’t concentrate enough on ‘me’ time. We’re just going to get away and enjoy ourselves.
It should be funny, if only for the mix of characters involved. I have seriously contemplated trying to write a sitcom about the four of us, based on our topsy turvy lives, loves and laughter.
I’ve often said that I long for love to happen like it does in the movies, when all the time I’ve been living an Oscar winning script.
Boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love in laundry room, girl leaves college and said boy. Boy goes back to ex girlfriend.
Girl gets in touch with boy, who has split up with said ex. Boy is miserable and says he loves girl and wishes they’d stayed together. Girl falls in love all over again (Not that she ever fell out).
Boy does too but with someone else (Or at least he thinks he does). Boy splits up. Meanwhile girl falls in love. Boy gets back together. Girl splits up. Girl pines for boy. Boy splits up for good. Girl ponders ending to script.

Clouding my vision

 
I’VE just returned from a delightful weekend in the bustling metropolis that is London, England.
We shopped ’til we quite literally dropped, saw the sights, met the stars and eyed up all the talent — all in just three days!
All the while I kept one eye out for the man in my dreams. I thought I saw him in the supermarket at home before I left so I shall be returning there asap for another chance meeting.
For those of you who don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, and I’m sure there will be many, I am suffering from a recurring dream in which I meet a lovely young man who I’m sure I know. But just when things are going good I laugh in his face and ruin everything.
Just to update anyone who is following this strand — I managed not to laugh the other night and found out his name was Michael.
It’s like I’m watching the two of us in a film. It’s getting a lot clearer and I’m remembering more about it.
I now have more of a recollection as to what he looks like — think of the baseball player on the new Impulse Thrill advert and you’re just about there. If anybody reading this recognises this description you can contact me through the missing persons incident room at your local newspaper!
He also bears an uncanny resemblance to the hotty young boy I met at the end of last year, but I’m trying not to dwell on this as his name wasn’t Michael. I can’t actually remember what his name was, but I’m sure it wasn’t that.
Also, the fact that he looks like someone I already know bursts the bubble that this may actually be literally ‘the man of my dreams’! Either that or I’ve deleted his number. And forgotten his name.
Talking of dreams, and more importantly adverts, I refer you to the one for Options where the woman has to chose between the fantasy of hot chocolate and the room full of hot half naked men.
I said last week I’d come face to face with my fantasy, when Steve Jones was interviewing Richard Gere on TV the previous weekend. I take that back.
In a TV studio in London, in the words of the Gigolo Aunts, is where I found my heaven.
We may all swoon at the sight of celebrity men on the TV, but what you may be unaware of is the wasted talent operating the camera, looking after the stars and chaperoning the audience. Hopefully they are only one step away from being in front of the cameras themselves. It would constitute mental cruelty to the viewing public if they remained in the shadows.
And it didn’t just stop at the studio. Everywhere in London my travelling companion had to battle to prise my eyes away from anything that moved; waiters, tube travellers, policemen, shop assistants.
It brings a whole new meaning to the phrase sightseeing for me.
It was great just to get away for the weekend — away from the stresses and strains of the relationships surrounding me.
I’m getting daily updates from my favourite ex now that his relationship with Little Miss Can’t Do Nothing Wrong is back on the track it derailed from with disastrous effects not so long ago.
My two former college classmates and best friends, are now not speaking and are preparing to face each other at a forthcoming birthday party of another mutual friend. I’ve warned them I’m not taking sides and that if there is any problems I’m just dancing away from them.
It occurred to me when we were ascending to 30,000 feet this weekend, that clouds are very much like relationships.
Stay with me on this one — I hope it makes sense. I’m going down a dangerous philosophical route here.
When you’re flying above them, the clouds look so solid and reliable that you want to throw yourself into them. But when you realise they are actually transparent and weak, and a simple thing like a wing (or distrust) can slice through them with ease, you land with a bump at your destination, and look back and wonder why you couldn’t see through it in the first place.
At the moment, my favourite ex is on cloud nine, a storm is brewing for my college friends, and I’m just floating along.